DAVAO DIGITAL INFLUENCERS, INC. (DDI) GRAND LAUNCH

September 12, 2016

ON September 3, 2016, Davao Digital Influencers, Inc. a newly formed organization of social media influencers here in Davao City was launched. The first set of officers was also inducted by no less than City Counselor Joanne Bonguyan, who represented the Mayor.

Despite the rough start, it was amazing how teamwork can put up a successful launch in just a matter of weeks. The core group was able to get it going and has turned it into a full blown and functioning organization.

#TeamDDI is a coming together of dedicated and passionate bloggers, video bloggers and microbloggers whose mission is to utilize its influence to create positive impact in the community where we operate and also to support MSMEs, government agencies and the marginalized sector. The organization aim to be advocates of responsible social media use and to promote Davao region's socio-cultural agenda.

Woman Elan Vital, yes that’s me, was elected Vice President for External Affairs, thank you DDI for the trust. At this point my blog mantra I think suits well my circumstance, Woman, may the force be with you!

Since I’m the VP for External Affairs, I was tasked to deliver my Welcome Address. I’d like to share with you what went down during that night, despite the unfortunate Roxas Avenue incident.

Your officers actually went into a chat discussion whether to push through with this event or not, but we thought we already have a lot of compromises and we need to honour them and maybe we just have a find a middle ground to come about with this situation.

We are saddened with what happened and I think everyone does.

This is another painful episode of a davaoenos life, but just like what we are truly made of, we always rise above our misfortunes.

We don’t want this to happen even to the worst of our enemies and in times like this, given the nature of what our organization does, and given the nature of what we do best - this will test the true predispositions of our capabilityties to handle this situation.

Social Media or Digital Influencers as what we call it in our circle – we play a very critical role in dealing with information in this situation. I’d like to believe that we aree all social media grown-ups and that we will deal with every information with outmost accountability.

If I may quote Inday Sarah, “We will not be terrorized by this heinous crime and I call on all Dabawenyos to unite and let us help each other rise from this senseless incident.”

And I know we can do that.

Tonight, we will launch a responsible community of digital influencers. Influencers that will be our city’s partner in promoting solid and truthful social media information.

We cannot afford to party knowing that there are a lot of our fellow Dabawenyos who are in grief right now, but instead tonight, we will use this event to get to know each very well as this will help solidify team DDI. And maybe plan our next course of action what we are going to do next to help and carry out our organization’s mission.

We’re safe around here; we are in the heart of Davao, thank you Marco Polo Davao for being our partner.

We have so much in store for us tonight, but I think we will wrap up our activity early so we can go home early.

Again, welcome thank you all for coming. Keep calm and we’ll try to do business as usual.